np: ORAS OU Suspect Process, Round 3 - Wandering Ghosts [Aegislash remains in Ubers]

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I don't think Aegislash should be banned; King's Shield is an insane move that can play serious mind games with the opponent as well as seriously cripple a physical attacker. As said in the intro, the 150/150 stats are also very threatening, and Aegislash's relatively slow speed stat allows it to capitalize on both the defensive and offensive capabilities of its formes and easily revert back to Shield forme with King's Shield. Even with the new additions of Mega Metagross, Diancie, Gallade, and Lopunny, Aegislash still poses a threat to just about anything you throw at it in OU and will have to once again have teams built specifically to at least check it.
I think you meant to say it should stay banned, given your reasoning. But I have to agree, it's built to use its offenses and defenses to basically simulate a Pokemon with 150 in both offensive and defensive stats. Even with new possible checks, as long as King's Shield is in use, you'll get those annoying 50/50 situations. Its varying stats also mean that it can take on a plethora of roles, in both physical and special tanks, as well as more supportive and/or defensive roles, if need be, and while it may do some of these roles better than others, the fact remains that this Pokemon is still a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, making it unpredictable.

However, given the amount of things that would get opened up for speculation, I'm definitely against banning King's Shield for the sake of making Aegislash non-broken. Even with offensive power like that, you'd likely be forced to switch after attacking most of the time. While Ghost/Steel is a lovely typing in and of itself, those 60/50/50 defenses will still be fairly easy to deal with. You'd be open to a plethora of things, and again, being forced to switch is not a good thing. I can't say for certain, but I don't think Aegislash would remain in OU without King's Shield. And then the whole thought process of unbanning something to help balance other potentially broken things gets thrown out the window.

In addition to that, banning a single move because of a single Pokemon seems wrong. I know the only other possible user is Smeargle, but still, you're potentially opening up a can of worms that really doesn't need to be opened. But, the metagame has changed a bit in Aegislash's absence, what with the ORAS Megas and all. The whole point of the suspect test will be to see what it can do now, and whether or not it's still considered broken. I'm personally against it returning to OU, as I don't think the new possible counters can handle it, BUT if it ends up back down there, then I suppose there's enough of a gap in those defenses to take it down easily enough. The real issue here is how it will effect teambuilding again. It's STILL going to be a common Pokemon regardless, and people will STILL need to have an Aegislash counter in mind. The question is whether or not enough of those exist on teams naturally to the point that their just simply there, and will be regardless of its presence. Only time will tell. The clock ticks down more and more each day, and when it finally hits 0, we'll see what happens. But it will be done with Aegislash intact; weakening it by removing its main quality won't solve anything.
 

p2

Banned deucer.
Lets be honest here smeargle never uses KingShield and Smeragle has like 2% usage anyways. Why doesn't it use King Shield? Because its not broken on Smeragle in fact its not even good. According to current logic moves should only be banned if they are broken on every user of the move not just one.

Also really Kecleon can't use Protean is your only defense? Kecleon has probably .0002% OU Usage and is in who knows what tier. In the standard OU metagame only Greninja used Protean and only Aegislash used KingShield. Basically they were defining characteristics of those pokemon that dramatically made them better. No they aren't exclusive to those pokemon, but they are the only users in the tier we are focusing on. If there is some collateral damage to lower tier pokemon oh well that happens.

The overreaching point is by banning King Shield Smogon is admitting its willing to neuter pokemon that are broken instead of straight banning them. Whether you want this or not is up to you. I'd just would like everyone to know the implications.
You could argue the same thing about Swagger, the only mons it was really broken on were either Pranksters and / or ones with Foul Play. You can't tell me that it'd broken on something like Magnezone or Azumarill, especially in comparison to Sableye or Thundurus.
The Kecleon part was about it's overall effectiveness in lower tiers since OU bans apply there as well.

Personally, I'm not too bothered about the King's Shield idea because either way, I'm still voting for Aegislash to stay in Ubers.
 

Fireburn

BARN ALL
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Before banning the move King's Shield, we have to answer this question first: Do we actually know if King's Shield, taken just by itself, is a broken move?

I say this because it is important to point out that we do have move bans: check out OHKO and Swagger clause. However, such moves are arguably broken on all their abusers, which points to the fact that the moves themselves are broken. On it's own, King's Shield is just a Protect clone that trades status move protection for a way to punish contact physical moves. Spiky Shield on Chesnaught does something similar (though to a somewhat lesser degree). So what makes King's Shield so special? Because Aegislash is built from the ground up to abuse it, thanks to its ability Stance Change, combined with its amazing typing, stats, and offensive coverage. Very clearly, this means King's Shield + Stance Change is the problem i.e. Aegislash is the problem. Thus King's Shield by itself isn't a broken move, ergo it shouldn't be banned.

I know you people hate the Smeargle argument but it does make a good, more general point: Would King's Shield be a broken move if given to any other Pokemon? With stuff like OHKO, Swagger, and Moody, this was arguably the case. I don't think the same can be said of King's Shield - attributing Aegislash's brokenness to the move is flawed when really the Pokemon created perfectly to abuse the move is the problem.

Another question I have: the rationale behind bringing down a previously suspected and banned Pokemon in the hopes that it will "fix" the metagame. To quote the OP:

OP said:
The current OU metagame is characterized by the presence of incredibly powerful attackers, such as Mega-Metagross, Mega-Diancie, Mega-Gardevoir and so on. We believe that a Pokémon like Aegislash, while being potentially overcentralizing, could provide a reliable and all-round check to many of the aforementioned threats, thus giving some stability to a tier that's currently heavily influenced by the match up component of the game.
That sounds all well and good until you compare the metagames in XY and now in ORAS. ORAS introduced a bunch of new stuff that Aegislash is a great check/borderline counter to, but didn't really add any new Pokemon that can handle it. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't that make Aegislash...more broken? By giving it more threats to check, you give it even more of a reason to be used and even more chances to come in and fire off its powerful hits. And if there isn't really any new Pokemon that can check it and it was banned before...then, well, there you go. We're working with the same checks we had before, but now Aegislash has even more reasons to be used and abused in ORAS. The metagame didn't become more hostile to it to where it would be easier to check, it became kinder to it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this suspect test shouldn't be happening. The admittedly sketch circumstances with which Aegislash was banned initially is grounds enough for a retest imo. But if Aegislash is to stay in the metagame, it should be evaluated to see if it would be more balanced/easier to check to where it would be a balanced fit in the metagame, not if it will "fix" the metagame, because putting Aegislash in a metagame with more reasons to use it just makes the problem of its overcentralization/ability to switch in on half the meta and crumble things worse. You're trading one problem for another at this point.

Just throwing my $0.02 on the table.
 
Personally, I'm not too bothered about the King's Shield idea because either way, I'm still voting for Aegislash to stay in Ubers.
Even with increased reqs I can still see some anti-ban Knights ranking and it's my favorite pokemon guys ranking barkin...voicing their opinion loud enough for it to matter(They are in their right to, but doesn't show a full grasp of the issues we are trying to tackle), taking a stand would be the best choice, otherwise we risk setting an unhealthy precedent for future suspects.

To keep this discussion on trail and avoid piggybacking, it's true that the meta changed... In aegislash favor. Almost every new and relevant treat that arose on the meta shift is hard checked by this guy unless they run inferior sets. With that said a few knock off users and tutored pokemon don't detriment aegislash glue role, aegislash actually became better in practice from my experience in the suspect. Heck it even got magnet rise as a not so gimmicky way to stop some stuff from checking him.
 
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I think the real question is when the Lando suspect will finally happen

Suggestions aside though, I'm really not sure how I feel about Aegislash in the meta right now. As stated like a thousand times before me, it makes Lando more broken than it already is and blanket checks a lot of mons. While I am glad for a reliable answer to MMeta and MAltaria, is it really worth hindering teambuilding even more?

I was pretty anti-ban during the first suspect, but the meta was pretty stable after Aegi left. I was also clamoring for a suspect for a while during the Giratina prank test, but looking at the suspect ladder makes me realize I may have been pretty wrong. Aegislash isn't just an incredibly powerful force, it's also an outstanding teammate to other powerful mons, watching you misplay and build teams to check and counter it with its one stoic eye as its mere presence intimidates you and affects how you play.

And I know AM said that the 50/50 arguement is a bad one, but honestly having such a luck based move, being King's Shield, that like only one Pokemon (being Bisharp, inb4 defiant Knock Off Empoleon) can reliably capitalize on is disgusting, and comparable to scald in UU; using luck to one's advantage, only not dependent on rng and not so widespread among Pokemon.

Aegislash is also so versatile, debatably more than Giratina was, with a slew of options you guys already know (physical, defensive, mixed, special, subtoxic, sd, autotomize, magnet rise now), and the only way to gage which set it's using beforehand is by looking at team preview, which is not reliable and can screw you all the way over, kinda like another Pokemon we banned cough Greninja cough, and causes more 50/50s to deal with. For example, you switch in Meta with EQ on an Aegi that may have already revealed a physical move other than sneak, only for it to Magnet Rise. Or perhaps your SpDef Mandibuzz thinks it's safe, only to obtain brain damage from a Head Smash.

On another note, Aegislash hinders the fairies in OU. That's great, right? Who ever liked Clefable or Wish pass Sylveon? Only Aegislash doesn't just counter fairies, it obliterates them It can pretty much switch in on any fairy in OU, even Mega Altaria depending on its spread
(252+ SpA Mega Altaria Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Aegislash-Shield: 164-194 (50.6 - 59.8%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, [after which point it can King's Shield to get free lefties then OHKO you]). To date, I don't know if one Pokemon has had such a negative effect on an entire type before, and such an almost genocidal check would obviously discourage the use of almost any fairies in its vicinity of OU, which no other steel type has really done thus far.

Lastly, how about the other Pokemon Aegislash invalidates? Mega Gallade, Medi, Heracross, Hawlucha, Jirachi, Celebi, Starmie, Terrakion, and more. They've all been gaining usage since ORAS (cept Terak and Medi) and struggle somewhat, but are. viable; they will now fall two steps back as their usage plummets. BL is already full as it is, but it could pretty much be its own tier after Aegi is done wiping his steely arse with some of these mons that are undoubtedly too strong for UU but will be left with nowhere else to go. In case you were left confused, that'd be a highly unhealthy effect on OU

It's a bummer too, because Aegislash is one of my absolute favorite Pokemon, but this seems like the wrong time for a suspect; we need to ban some more broken stuff before letting it back in, as it's support to said Pokemon is too valuable and its appearance in the tier does not solve as many issues as you'd think. Maybe test King's Shield and it'd be fine, idk.
 
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Im surprised no one brought this up yet but lets say that we allow aegislash and ban king shield...
it still gets PROTECT, while protect doesnt have the minus attack as king shield does when u make contact with it, it does everything else the same and also protects it from things like twave willo etc,,, banning king shield is not the answer
Protect doesn't bring Aegislash back to shield mode.
 
Before banning the move King's Shield, we have to answer this question first: Do we actually know if King's Shield, taken just by itself, is a broken move?

I say this because it is important to point out that we do have move bans: check out OHKO and Swagger clause. However, such moves are arguably broken on all their abusers, which points to the fact that the moves themselves are broken. On it's own, King's Shield is just a Protect clone that trades status move protection for a way to punish contact physical moves. Spiky Shield on Chesnaught does something similar (though to a somewhat lesser degree). So what makes King's Shield so special? Because Aegislash is built from the ground up to abuse it, thanks to its ability Stance Change, combined with its amazing typing, stats, and offensive coverage. Very clearly, this means King's Shield + Stance Change is the problem i.e. Aegislash is the problem. Thus King's Shield by itself isn't a broken move, ergo it shouldn't be banned.

I know you people hate the Smeargle argument but it does make a good, more general point: Would King's Shield be a broken move if given to any other Pokemon? With stuff like OHKO, Swagger, and Moody, this was arguably the case. I don't think the same can be said of King's Shield - attributing Aegislash's brokenness to the move is flawed when really the Pokemon created perfectly to abuse the move is the problem.

Another question I have: the rationale behind bringing down a previously suspected and banned Pokemon in the hopes that it will "fix" the metagame. To quote the OP:



That sounds all well and good until you compare the metagames in XY and now in ORAS. ORAS introduced a bunch of new stuff that Aegislash is a great check/borderline counter to, but didn't really add any new Pokemon that can handle it. Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't that make Aegislash...more broken? By giving it more threats to check, you give it even more of a reason to be used and even more chances to come in and fire off its powerful hits. And if there isn't really any new Pokemon that can check it and it was banned before...then, well, there you go. We're working with the same checks we had before, but now Aegislash has even more reasons to be used and abused in ORAS. The metagame didn't become more hostile to it to where it would be easier to check, it became kinder to it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this suspect test shouldn't be happening. The admittedly sketch circumstances with which Aegislash was banned initially is grounds enough for a retest imo. But if Aegislash is to stay in the metagame, it should be evaluated to see if it would be more balanced/easier to check to where it would be a balanced fit in the metagame, not if it will "fix" the metagame, because putting Aegislash in a metagame with more reasons to use it just makes the problem of its overcentralization/ability to switch in on half the meta and crumble things worse. You're trading one problem for another at this point.

Just throwing my $0.02 on the table.
Well to give an an answer to your King's Shield question, it is undoubtedly Aegislash's best move. Perhaps similarly to how Rayquaza isn't allowed to Mega Evolve in Ubers, Aegislash could be banned from KS usage? The combination if the two is quite problematic after all.
 

MZ

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Lets be honest here smeargle never uses KingShield and Smeragle has like 2% usage anyways. Why doesn't it use King Shield? Because its not broken on Smeragle in fact its not even good. According to current logic moves should only be banned if they are broken on every user of the move not just one.

Also really Kecleon can't use Protean is your only defense? Kecleon has probably .0002% OU Usage and is in who knows what tier. In the standard OU metagame only Greninja used Protean and only Aegislash used KingShield. Basically they were defining characteristics of those pokemon that dramatically made them better. No they aren't exclusive to those pokemon, but they are the only users in the tier we are focusing on. If there is some collateral damage to lower tier pokemon oh well that happens.

The overreaching point is by banning King Shield Smogon is admitting its willing to neuter pokemon that are broken instead of straight banning them. Whether you want this or not is up to you. I'd just would like everyone to know the implications.
Protean has more relevance in PU/Nu where frogadier and Kecleon would be forced to lose it. This is still an OU suspect (and as a PU player getting Kek back would be cool) but things banned in OU do have relevance all the way down (see: UU banning drought/drizzle).
 
(Disclaimer: My use of the term "broken" in this post usually refers more to being effective enough for a negative impact moreso than outright unbeatable)

As has been discussed, I'm not a fan of the idea of a KS ban either, independent of its effect on Aegislash, because the sentiment behind it here seems to run contrary to the point of banning moves or abilities: Is King's Shield, in its own right, actually an uncompetitive move, or is is just that it is among the factors that makes Aegislash, the Pokemon using it, unhealthy? If the answer is the former, King's Shield should be subject to a ban; if it's the latter, Aegislash should be banned. We've obviously got a complex scenario in place for it already, but despite cancer pass, why haven't we banned Baton Pass? Because the move Baton Pass is not inherently broken or unhealthy, rather it has some unhealthy abusers (or at least Pokemon that can use it in such a manner): Smeargle and Scolipede. None of the move components of a typical Baton Pass team are broken. If another ban were to take place, logically wouldn't it be Smeargle and/or Scolipede, the two Pokemon whose collective traits make it possible for them to abuse the move in such a manner? (Note: I am using this for an example, not to advocate another ban on them).

We have other similar cases this gen alone: Blaziken (not Speed Boost), Greninja (not Protean). While the abilities were good, other Pokemon demonstrate that these abilities were not what made them broken/bad, but rather something that meshed well with the Pokemon's other traits (Blaziken's high BP STABs and boosting options, Greninja's blistering speed and ridiculous coverage). Aegislash is a Pokemon built around the use of King's Shield (Stance Change only activating in response to King's Shield specifically for defense), so is it any wonder the move works so well on it? King's Shield is not an inherently broken move, otherwise we'd have seen it abused on Smeargle and it probably would have come up for discussion. King's Shield is just among the factors that makes Aegislash problematic. The option just feels to me very much like the intent is to try and nerf Aegislash enough for OU, more so than a belief that the move itself is uncompetitive itself, indepedent of its main user. Genesect was mainly unhealthy because of how it could abuse U-Turn. Genesect is significantly less problematic without U-Turn, but because a competitive move made him too powerful for OU, Genesect was banned.

If King's Shield was on a variety of other Pokemon and proved to be broken on them as well, then I could see the idea, but the only other case of a user is Smeargle who, whether or not it uses it, has not proven the move broken on it. King's Shield creates problems because of how it interacts with Aegislash less so than its own merits as a move.


And with all that said, I just don't like the spirit behind this suspect or the reasons given in the April Fool's test: brining down Ubers to stabilize OU somehow. Either the offensive threats are broken or not; we can't evaluate the meta as stable just because they're broken without Aegislash, but manageable with Aegislash. That is the "broken checking broken" philosophy that these suspects are meant to do away with. I don't believe OU has anything that severely problematic bar maybe Landorus-I, but regardless, if the motivation to test Aegislash is because we have threats making OU too match-up reliant, isn't the course supposed to be testing to ban those rather than unban Aegislash? Aegislash may have been the proverbial dam on the power flood, but rather than just clean the water, we're just putting the damn back up and calling the dry spell a success.

I'm not saying Aegislash might not be able to re-enter OU at some point in the future. What I am saying is that, when retesting, it should be because the meta is already healthy and we want to see if it would still be with Aegislash in it, not because the Metagame has problems and we're hoping Aegislash will be the solution.
 
SmogonSword should remain uber. People want it unbanned to deal with Mega Diance, Mega Metagross, Mega Altaria etc when we already have decent checks/counters to M Diance and M altaria such as scizor and Metagross. The only thing SmogonSword accomplishes is overcentralizing the meta again, which is one of the reasons it was placed in ubers to begin with. We should be suspect testing stuff in the OU metagame instead of retesting stuff already sent to ubers. We want to make the OU metagame as healthy as possible, not make it even more centralizing than it already is.
 
While we're at it, I love Mawile, so can we just ban it using sucker punch and retest it?

Just so it's clear, that is satirical and an example of the slippery slope argument. Kings Shield is a move that is not broken on its own, it is only broken in conjunction with the ability stance change and 150/150 offences and defences depending on what form they are in. Or, in other words, King's Shield is only broken on Aegislash, and setting the precedent of banning Mon + Move is not something I believe should be set.
I agree with what you're saying, and that's not a precedent we should set. But while Mawile was really very broken even without sucker, Aegislash without KS could potentially accomplish what the OU council intends by bringing him down while eliminating luck and 50/50s from his play style, which can't be a bad thing. He'd be balanced against things by being a solid revenge killer or team supporter, but being able to be easily revenge killed or set up on after doing his job like normal mons instead of throwing you into a game of roulette when you attempt to stop him. But a suspect t would be the only emery to find out for sure.
 
To all the people saying the move King's Shield itself is not broken but is rather only broken on Aegi, just no. The mere fact that any physical attacker can be beaten because of this move is honestly so stupid and any pokemon could make good use of it. Imagine Hippowdon having this move so it could easily wall banded Azumarill; the move itself is surely broken. In addition to this, there is no reason to hold on to unnecessary ideals like "we shouldn't be banning moves, but just pokemon" when this new proposal of just banning KS is such a great opportunity and shouldn't be thrown away so quickly. I really want people to consider this option because I honestly think its the perfect solution for this suspect test.
 
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leremyju

Banned deucer.
The right solution wasn't the Aegislash suspect. It was first to ban Mega Metagross, then whatever became broken after that. If your goal is to create a better metagame because there are certain pokemon like MMeta, Altaria, etc... making this metagame "matchup based" and restricting teambuliding (which is a way better reason than matchup based because matchup will always exist) then we should have banned the said pokemon that make this an undesirable metagame rather than bring something down that offers amazing team support and offensive prescence. I've fucked around around 50 games now with Pursuit Aegislash. It literally opens up so many opportunities for things like Landorus and Keldeo to sweep. The possibility of such an overcentralizing pokemon that has little opportunity cost becoming OU won't create a better metagame. If we are talking the right course of action in the long term it is to keep Aegislash uber, resuspect Metagross or possibly Lando I and then see what happens to the metagame after.

Lil YoshiXD dude Smeargle isn't even used because it sucks ass as a lead and its only niche is geopass. It never uses King's Shield because it would rather have other moves like Spore/Dark Void and hazards and shit.
 
To all the people saying the move King's Shield itself is not broken but is rather only broken on Aegi, just no. The mere fact that any physical attacker can be beaten because of this move is honestly so stupid and any pokemon could make good use of it. Imagine Hippowdon having this move so it could easily wall banded Azumarill; the move itself is surely broken. In addition to this, there is no reason to hold on to unnecessary ideals like "we shouldn't be banning moves, but just pokemon" when this new proposal of just banning KS is such a great opportunity and shouldn't be thrown away so quickly. I really want people to consider this option because I honestly think its the perfect solution for this suspect test.
Banning King shield would be a decent compromise if SmogonSword wasn't centralizing, enough as it is. Even without King shield, SmogonSword can still use the 50/50 game on Lopunny's HJK as it gets protect. Granted, there wouldn't be a -2 repercussion for using HJK, but still a recoil repercussion is present. One could say that this would apply to any pokemon using protect/spiky shield, you especially don't want to lose near half your health against the pokemon you would be attempting to check (SmogonSword) anyways.

SmogonSword would be making all these pokemon unviable.
Mega Gallade
Mega Gardivoir
Mega Altaria
Mega Diance
Mega Lopunny (in the sense that with King's shield, HJK becomes a liability)
Mega Metagross (to some extent)
Togekiss

Are the above pokemon that detrimental to the OU metagame, where we feel is is essential to unban SmogonSword? Besides checking the above, what benefit does SmogonSword bring to the OU Metagame? Also, don't forget that weakness policy SmogonSword with automatize is a thing.
 

Punchshroom

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I think it speaks volumes about the state of the meta if we're resorting to nerfing Uber-worthy Pokemon in an attempt to make it stable. When will the line be drawn when it comes to limiting Ubers Pokemon just to see if they don't break OU with their nerfs?

The biggest problem with banning King's Shield on Aegislash is that it opens up iffy precedents of unbanning Ubers just to make them manageable in OU (at least when it comes to blanket banning moves, not abilities, sry Greninja and Blaziken). King's Shield by itself isn't really a broken move; it's the fact that Aegislash can revert back to its Shield Stance with it that makes it a problematic attack, but that isn't so much speaking of King's Shield's brokenness rather than Aegislash itself. Take Dark Void for instance. It's vastly overshadowed by Spore bar the ability to affect Grass-types (and usually Smeargle can get its shit done without needing to put said Grass to sleep, due to their defensive nature), but it's the fact that its main user, Darkrai, has an ability that takes full advantage of this move that puts it a league ahead of any and all potential users of the move. Sound familiar? Yeah this pretty much applies to Aegislash as well.

As for the Aegislash suspect, I don't think it will solve the problems the meta has atm, if not it only exacerbates them. It adds yet another teambuilding threat to account for, and it makes (certain) already powerful Pokemon even stronger than they were with its potent support, and render the less fortunate victims much less viable. Aegislash would likely influence the meta in an extreme degree (top tier mons becomes even better, most everything else becomes weaker / less viable), and even if it eliminates the issue of 'ZOMG TOO MANY THREATS TO PREPARE FOR', it would most likely create the issue of 'ZOMG EVERY TEAM IS ~THE GODDAMN SAME'.
 
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Thisbemyalt

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Frankly I have to disagree with banning only KS. Bans like this should just be avoided as any mon can be justified in any tier with a strong enough nerf hell lets just move Gren back without protean or maybe mega mence by banning the use of STAB. Ofc the mence example is a hyperbole but the general point still stands. If we allow aegi back we would have to consider these types of bans for every suspect mon. Finally KS itself is not what breaks aegi, what breaks aegi is how ridiculously bulky and strong it is plus the 50/50s, kings shield is just the transition to defense form in most cases which causes 50/50s to occur.
 
That's the point he was making. If King's Shield was legitimately a broken move, Smeargle would use the move even over "Spore/Dark Void and hazards and shit" because the move would just be effective enough to justify doing so.
No, because Smeargle has absolutely no way of taking advantage of KS in a viable way except getting free turns to lay a hazard or pass boosts, which Spore/Dark Void does better anyway. Think of it this way; if you give Smeargle Parental Bond it's not going to be of much use either, but it doesn't mean it won't be broken on most other fully evolved pokemon. Just because it's not as broken as Moody doesn't mean it can't be broken, one thing can be more broken than another thing.
 
I'm sure other people have said it but I'm far too lazy to find and quote it
but basically i don't think aegislash itself is the problem but moreso its team supporting qualities that make it have such low opportunity cost and such high usage. It does hard counter/check popular pokemon (lati@s for ex) that check/counter huge threats like char y and lando, making very strong cores with low opportunity cost, limiting diversity and making team building repetitive and boring.
 
Just by reading the comments, this suspect is just a waste of time. I think Lando-I would have been a much better suspect, then whatever is broken after Lando-I's ban we test that and etc. Then maybe we could have tested Aegislash because I think its still too early, we are just seeing Aegislash form strong cores with certain S-Ranked mons which makes it look broken because its good support. Kings Shield ban arguably helps let physical attackers hit without fearing the -2 attack drop. But I'm not so sure atm if Aegislash is healthy or not with or without Kings Shield.
 
Banning King shield would be a decent compromise if SmogonSword wasn't centralizing, enough as it is. Even without King shield, SmogonSword can still use the 50/50 game on Lopunny's HJK as it gets protect. Granted, there wouldn't be a -2 repercussion for using HJK, but still a recoil repercussion is present. One could say that this would apply to any pokemon using protect/spiky shield, you especially don't want to lose near half your health against the pokemon you would be attempting to check (SmogonSword) anyways.

SmogonSword would be making all these pokemon unviable.
Mega Gallade
Mega Gardivoir
Mega Altaria
Mega Diance
Mega Lopunny (in the sense that with King's shield, HJK becomes a liability)
Mega Metagross (to some extent)
Togekiss

Are the above pokemon that detrimental to the OU metagame, where we feel is is essential to unban SmogonSword? Besides checking the above, what benefit does SmogonSword bring to the OU Metagame? Also, don't forget that weakness policy SmogonSword with automatize is a thing.
You can take Mega Metagross, Mega Altaria, and Mega Lopunny off that list for sure. From what I've seen on the suspect ladder (while I've only played a couple matches, I've actually watched a bunch), all three of these are as good as ever, and are now packing Aegislash on their teams to help clear the way for a sweep. Keldeo and Lando-I seem to be getting a lot of use too. So, all four of the current S-ranks, which are the main Pokemon that lowering Aegislash is supposed to check, are actually doing more or less fine. While Aegislash could theoretically give them problems on paper, in reality they're perfectly fine in an Aegislash meta, so long as they're packing Aegislash, and one or maybe two Aegislash checks on their teams. So, the four most meta-defining Pokemon, at least three of which have had people on this thread saying that they should have been suspected first, are virtually unaffected. They don't even lose much freedom in teambuilding, because Aegislash can check half the stuff in the meta anyway, so there's no real drawback to being required to have it on your team. Now, when most players start complaining that the meta is stale, thanks in large part to the overwhelming presence of a few top tier mons, and the staff take notice and decide to try moving down a Pokemon that may or may not be broken mostly for the purpose of checking those mons, and the mon in question has little impact on their usability, but negatively impacts the usability of quite a few other Pokemon instead...well, you have a REALLY serious problem.

So, what about the notion of banning King's Shield but letting Aegi stay? Well, here's the part where I wish I had a few replays as evidence, but whatever (come on Darth, how hard is it to remember to click that button?). From what I've been seeing, most Aegislashes currently being used on suspect tier teams I suspect probably are in fact carrying King's Shield. I say "suspect", rather than "know", because I haven't been seeing it being used anywhere near as much as I'd expected to. Oh, people are definitely using it in their matches, don't doubt that for a second. However, many of the matches I've seen have had it used just once, maybe twice, and a few matches I've seen haven't shown it at all. Why is this important? Well, Aegislash was doing its job perfectly fine through much of the course of those matches before it used KS. In some cases, the use of KS was actually unnecessary. Had King's Shield not been on those Aegislash sets, I suspect that Aegislash would indeed have gone down sooner, but not soon enough to make a major difference in the outcome of the match. Those Aegis had accomplished their mission of KOing or weakening the checks and counters to the main win conditions. Had they died a few turns earlier, it probably wouldn't have mattered all that much. Aegi's still difficult as fuck to switch into, and depriving it of King's Shield would just force it to switch out a bit more often (and supportive variants might not even have to switch out at all). Honestly, I think the issue is less about King's Shield and more about Aegislash's ridiculously useful typing, which again, can let him check half the tier, with King's Shield just being the final nail in the coffin. If we just ban King's Shield, smart players will still be able to abuse Aegislash's positive points; they'll just have to play slightly more carefully. Honestly, while it's still early in the test, I'm finding it difficult to come up with a scenario in which Aegislash could conceivably make the meta a better place, and that's a problem since that is literally the only reason for this suspect test.
 
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First of all, from what i could gather from 15 or so games i played on the suspect ladder, aegislash is definitely not healthy for the Metagame. I got lazy and used my deo-sharp team, with skarmory obviously and it did not fare half bad, considering how weak the team is to some huge that's such as lando-i and keldeo. But, i could easily play around them with baloon aegislash as long as i could keep aegi healthy as shadow ball hits hard af and could easily pick off with shadow sneak. People say that lopunny is a good check, and i agree, but what if the opponent king's shields. Well i can just encore lol but that's kinda too obvious and if he switches, i am fucked up. As for people saying that its centralizing but helps teambuilding, i say try watching some replays of aegislash era. You literally need 2 aegi checks at the very least and even then it may do serious work against your team. Now comes the team support part. We all know that it can work on every single team literally. I am just gonna say that it helps offense a lot as i generally play offense. It partners really well with Lando-i and Keldeo as it can easily check almost all of their checks except maybe Talonflame. Thus, it just makes two of the best Pokemon in the tier even better and possibly broken. It can also prevent Rapid Spin which was getting preference over Defog these days as Spikes. I know most of this was rambling cuff all the things i said have already been said, but i could not resist that.
Now, for the Kings Shield ban proposal, kings shield is not inherently broken IMO, it has got literally 1 viable user. Also, the main reason why Aegislash is being retested is because it blanket checks large portion of the metagame, thus reducing matchup. But, that point becomes moot if it gets pursuit trapped after using literally one attack as well as not taking even resisted hits well in the attack forme. So, i think the best course of action would be to keep Aegislash banned.
 
I don't generally post much here, but I felt the need to share a thought I had while reading this thread: if the entire reason for bringing this thing down was to check the new Megas, why would you consider lowering it, but revoking the one move that allows it to actually do that? It can't really blanket check much if it's stuck in Blade form... I guess the way I see it, banning KS would cause Aegislash to not be able to do the one thing it's supposed to do, and it might drop further than intended. All those S-ranks that it was meant to stop feast on Blade form, and I probably don't need calcs to prove it.

It feels a little off to me. Like it needs to be decided what we really want out of this test.
 

truedrew

Banned deucer.
50/50 aegislash mindGAMES #PLS BAN



Translation: rinse and re say some over exhausted pretty lame arguments over and over and over again. POKEMON IS A COMPETITIVE GAMES PEOPLE STOP SAYING MIND GAMES ARE FUCKING BAD these ridiculous amount of posts just read 1-2 good valid posts and repost that shit like they some pros like fuck actually play the meta then talk don't regurgitate bs posted before by others like I bet we can just cp the previous arguments and see striking likeness between them.

Also stop encouraging scenarios where ppl like
"Aegi makes xyz unviable pls ban I want to use xyz" fact of the matter is if you have not used them yourselves you never were going to anyways and utilising them to support a reban WITHOUT EVE LADDERING IS COMPLETE INSANITY

I saw a post saying viability=/= usage or some shit.... pokemon are made useful due to in part their usage and also the current metagame shifts. Medicham was always a subpar mega which even after the Aegi ban was not used so stop using it As an example. Gardevoir can just run shadowball ez. Terrakion anyways fell in usage along with mons like herra and pinsir so I fail to see how Aegi makes them for as they are already "dead" due to the newer saxier megas *cough*metacentralising*cough*

Also 50/50 argument is like a person on crack. You won't know what they do until they do it much
Like you won't know if Aegi can use ks or not it's part of the mofo game man deal with it. It's like saying mega beedril forces 50/50 against hjk?_?

Also please stop hawlucha is mediocre and will always be that way regardless of what you think it can do shirt like mega sab already cunt slap it so please do the say it's name ever.
 
I dont like the KS ban idea either, not so much because of the precedent it sets, thats something that the tier leaders have to decide, but for 2 reasons.

1. The 50-50 argument is just as bad as the 720 bst one and
2. it wont do much anyway.

I know that many people here try to beat Aegislash with contact attackers like Azu and Charizard X on a regular basis and because of that they are frustrated that it doesnt work that well but any serious player wont do that. They will just bring something that doesnt have to rely on contact moves (or is called Bisharp/Mandibuzz) to beat Aegi and its not like we are short of options in that regard. With or without Aegi, EQ is on almost every physical attacker and the tier has tons of strong special attackers who dont give a fuck about Kingshield. Taking that as a basis the only thing that KS usually does and did is to buy 1 turn of leftover recovery before Aegi is forced out. And that could be achieved with protect as well and it certainly wont stop Aegi from killing any versatelity in the tier. KS doesnt even effect Lopunnys ability to check Aegi all that much because with HJK it will have other things to worry about than -2 attack if its attack failes due to an protect move.
 
Holy crap I can't believe I just spent 2 and a half hours reading this garb... (there were maybe 3 well written posts for over 300 posts of misinformation, one liners(which I thought were banned by the OP), and poorly constructed arguments)

Anyway, most of the pro-ban arguments I have seen have focused on Aegi being overcentralizing. That being said, I think that if the mmeta suspect showed us anything, it's that the community currently seems fairly ready to reject the overcentralizing argument as the sole reason to ban something. Mmeta was a fairly overcentralizing mon that was capable of swapping into and threatening a wide variety of mons, yet even most of the pro-ban side admitted that it was not broken, and eventually the community decided to keep it unbanned. I also disagree with people stating that KS 50/50s are a valid argument for banning something, I think it can be worked around and otherwise abused (try AV entei, it's actually a pretty good aegis check).

Call me a purist, but as far as I'm concerned, there is one and only one good reason to ban a mon, and that reason is that it's broken in one way or another. The SD set isn't sweeping any competently built team any time soon, so offensive characteristic is out. No reliable recovery means defensive is also out. You can possibly make an argument for support characteristic, but I have a hard time seeing aegi supporting his team in a way mmeta couldn't. They check many of the same mons, can survive similar levels of BS, and hit their swap ins roughly as hard. Only real differences I see is that aegis has a much better SPA, defensive typing, and primary STAB, while MMeta is much, much faster and has SR.

So I wanna know, what can aegislash do that mmeta cannot? And are these differences enough to override mmeta's noteworthy advantages to such a degree that aegis is broken (yes, SR is a significant advantage)?

P.S. We shouldn't ban KS for the same reason the UU council didn't ban V-Create, it's a ban whose sole purpose is to nerf a potentially broken mon in hopes of making it less broken. Regardless of my eventual position of ban vs no ban, I am very against this option.

*edit*

fixed some important typos. Holy crap I need to not post at 2:00 A.M.
 
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